The field of the invention is soybean proteins having chemopreventive effects.
The concept that dietary factors play an important role in the etiology of different kinds of cancer is well supported by epidemiological data (World Cancer Fund, 1997). For instance, there is much evidence to suggest that diets containing large amount of soybean products are associated with overall low cancer mortality rates, particularly for cancers of the colon, breast and prostate, which has given impetus towards identifying specific compounds in soybean that could be responsible for its cancer preventive effects (Messina and Barnes, 1991; Kennedy, 1995).
A soybean-derived protease inhibitor, Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI) has been shown to be a particularly effective chemopreventive agent (Kennedy, 1998). BBI has been characterized as a protein of 8 kD of defined sequence and structure (reviewed by Birk, 1985), however most studies demonstrating the efficacy of BBI have used BBIC, a soybean extract enriched in BBI. BBIC is highly effective in suppressing carcinogenesis (1) induced by several different carcinogens, (2) in three different in animal model systems (rats, mice and hamsters) and in in vitro transformation systems (Kennedy et al, 1993), (3) in several tissues/organs (colon, liver, lung, esophagus and oral epithelium, (4) when administered to animals in several different routes (ip,iv, topical,dietary), (5) involving different kinds of tumors (squamous cell carcinomas, adenocarcinomas, angiosarcomas,etc, (6) in different cell types (epithelial cells in liver, colon, lung, esophagus and cheek pouch as well as connective tissue cells (fibroblasts both in vitro as well as in liver which give rise to angiosarcomas. Thus, the chemopreventive ability of BBIC has been demonstrated in a variety of different carcinogenesis assay systems, achieving Investigational New Drug status from the FDA in 1992 (IND no.34671) and now in human clinical trials.
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The invention provides methods and comprisitions for delivering effective amounts of lunasin as a nutraceutical. The general formulation comprises a composition comprising an active unit dosage of a lunasin polypeptide and a pharmaceutically acceptable excipient, said composition comprising at least 50% by polypeptide weight said lunasin polypeptide and less than 10% by polypeptide weight Bowman-Birk Inhibitor polypeptide. In other embodiments, the composition comprises at least 70%, preferably at least 90%, more preferably at least 98%, most preferably 100% by polypeptide weight said lunasin polypeptide and less than 2%, preferably less than 0.5%, more preferably less than 0.1%, most preferably 0% by polypeptide weight Bowman-Birk Inhibitor polypeptide. The formulations may be delivered or administered by any of a wide variety of convenient delivery methods well known in the art, (see, e.g. Goodman and Gilman""s The Pharmacological Basis of Therapeutics, Ninth Edition) including oral ingestion, by topically contacting skin using well known techniques for dermal delivery, by introducing into a retained physiological fluids such as blood, synovial fluid, interstitial fluid, etc.
The invention also provides methods for making the subject formulations by purifying lunasin polypeptides to the requisite purity, and combining said lunasin polypeptide with a pharmaceuitcally acceptible excipient in an orally active unit dosage. The lunasin source material may be soybeans, a recombinant lunasin polypeptide expression system, a synthetically produced lunasin, or extract or fraction thereof. Suitable excipients and dosages are readily determined emperically as guided by existing BBIC data.